Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris

...book by Joanne Harris - Blackberry Wine. The reason I mention Harris' previous novel Chocolat is that this novel is set in the same small town in France - Lansquenet. The story of this book is fairly complex, but I'll try to simplify it for you. Jay Mackintosh is a writer whose first hit novel "Jackapple Joe" was based on a man he met as a boy in the late 70s in an ex-mining town in England called Pog Hill. It's now 1999, however, and he hasn't ...
...the boy's mother. In Blackberry Wine we find another case of this estrangement – while here, the grandmother is estranged from her granddaughter because the daughter-in-law is afraid that her mother-in-law might try to take the child from her. While in Chocolat this conflict comes to a satisfactory solution, here it is left as a loose end which I found to be dissatisfying. However, despite these drawbacks, this book did have some redeeming factors. ...

TheChocolateLady 01.08.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris

...the characters around myself. Blackberry Wine was one of those rare books where I felt I really had to plough through the first few chapters until I got to a point where I could look forward to picking it up again next time. I always persevere though, and on this occasion I’m glad I did. The book begins to open up nicely a few chapters in, and you start to feel as if there might be a story to tell. But let’s go back to the beginning shall we? Jay ...
...characters you might recognise in Blackberry Wine. The café owner Josephine Muscat, the baker Poitou, the market gardener Narcisse, Georges and Caro Clairmont all had an outing in Joanne Harris’s earlier novel, Chocolat. None play a central role in Blackberry Wine however and you certainly wouldn’t need to have read Chocolat to understand the part they play here. There is something comforting in their inclusion however. Perhaps it’s the sense of ...

amyturtle 09.11.2002 · Read full review
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Review of Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris

...a very special occasion…. Blackberry Wine follows many of the themes found in Harris’s bestseller Chocolat, such as the food theme (in this case wine), magic and alchemy. It is an enchanting novel, which I could not put down. I was delighted to revisit Lansquenet and to meet up with some old friends. In fact, I think the novel really takes off once Jay arrives at his château. I was so enthralled by Chocolat that I was hoping that I would ...

Suzan 29.01.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris

I read Blackberry Wine a year after Chocolat, but I could still remember the latter well. Although I liked Blackberry Wine, it seems to me that I could not enjoy it as wholeheartedly and warmly as I had its predecessor. Blackberry Wine is the story of Jay Mackintosh, a blocked writer whose only outlet for his stifled creativity is a slew of science fiction written under a pseudonym. He writes them on his computer, saving his old, trusty typewriter ...
...There is no doubt that Blackberry Wine is a sweet tale, interweaving neatly between Jay's past and present. It is absorbing, but I found that it took me three full chapters (I've only ever given up on one book, American Psycho) to really get a feel for it, and it was the passages set during Jay's childhood, and his early introduction into Lansquenet (the setting for Chocolat) that really got me hooked. Although it is not necessary to have read Chocolat, ...

ruth_cole 23.01.2002 · Read full review
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Review of Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris

...will have guessed is called Blackberry Wine. This time, instead of magical chocolate, being the food theme, we have magical fruit wine as the drink theme. However, this is not a novel about wine it is far more than that, let me enlighten you. Jay Mackintosh, is approaching middle age, he is trapped in a loveless relationship, with the rather fake and media crazy, Kerry. Drunk for most of the day and angry at who knows what, Jay is a blocked writer. ...
...explored using this method. Blackberry Wine, therefore, slips in and out of two separate but linked stories, in an ambitious style, but nothing is lost in the flow of the book because of this. In Blackberry Wine, Harris has recaptured that wonderful descriptive writing style, she flourishes with beautiful descriptions of the smell of herbs, the character of wine – “He pours me, releasing the scents of summers forgotten and places long ...

KingHerrod 22.07.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris

Really, Joanne Harris is one of the best writers of this Century. If she made us dream and feel so much in "Chocolat", in this novel she make the same again. The novel is brilliant. It tells the story of Jay, a British writer that one to take a decision: left all and go to a little French Village. In this Village, he tries to start a new life and live truly. This Village, gives him all that he is looking for: himselve. The story has a lot of flash ...
...good because give rhythm to the story. Like "Chocolat" all the characters has a big and special personality, making stand out Jay. I think he is a brave guy, a few cowardly at the beginin of the story, but more strong and sure at the end. He knows what he wants to do, or make, with his live and, because of that he lefts London and goes to France looking for his past, and his present. There is a nice surprise in this story, if you have read "Chocolat" ...

Aurea 12.05.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris

After reading the first few pages for the book I was hooked. The story is 'told' by a bottle of Fleurie 1962 wine, which was bought on the year of Jay's birth. It is a tale of mystery and a little magic about Jay Mackintosh. Jay is a young boy in 1975 whoses parents are divorced and more preoccupied with their own lifes to pay much attention to his. He spends the summer of 1975 at his grandmother's house in the Northern Town of Kirby Monckton, where ...
...teaches Jay a little magic about life. The next few summers with Joe influence Jay's life so much that he wrote a best selling novel about 'Jackapple Joe' and becomes a celebrated writer. After Jay's initial success he is no longer able to write anything other than the kind of trashy sci-fi fiction he read as a child. Jay has a collection of wines known as the 'Specials' left behind when Joe disappeared from Poghill Lane. The Specials contain a ...

tracythomson 28.10.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris

...of Joanne Harris's work, and Blackberry Wine has only increased my admiration for her work. From the first word you become drawn into the world of occupied France. It is a story of three children who unwittingly are immersed into the dangerous adult world of love, death and mistrust during the German occupation of France in the Second World War. The characters, even the 'baddies' are loveable and each with their own complex mystic which leaves you ...

Roll 22.09.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris

...book - bottles rattling and dancing in the cellar. I have to say that of Joanne Harris' three food books, I've much prefered Chocolate and Five Quarters of the Orange, and would strongly recommend starting with these 2 before reading Blackberry Wine, to build familiarity with the writing style. ...

bec54 23.09.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris